Published: December 18, 2010

Op-Art

Shakedown Street

By BRUCE McCALL

Those bike lanes eating up one or two traffic lanes were only a start: City crews are now out collecting overtime as they convert New York’s widest major thoroughfares into Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s dream of a vehicle-free paradise — and all for no more than the cost of a few thousand buckets of white paint!

Under the new system, sidewalk parking for all vehicles becomes not only mandatory but also illegal — a one-two punch expected to fatten the Department of Finance’s coffers by an estimated $13 million per day in added traffic summonses!

Cleared of all vehicular traffic, streets can now be sliced into seven lanes serving almost every purpose except driving:

A — TRAFFIC AGENT LANE. A personal walkway for those peripatetic squads of uniformed men and women sworn to wander the streets and catch the culprits who get the tickets that pay for the uniformed men and women.